God
brought to children
in sorties of pain
Strictures
and scriptures
religion ordained
The wings
of an Angel
lie buried within
Iconoclasts
pawning
— original sin
(Dreamsleep: January, 2026)
Statues, iconoclasts love to destroy
Toppling monuments brings them great joy
Keeps them all limber
As they shout ‘Timber’
Columbus crashed down saying ~ ‘Land ahoy’
You walk in hoping for solace or a smile,
instead you’re ostracized by iconoclasts.
Oh what irony!
Becoming what you profess to be against,
don’t you see what a joke that is?
Now we’re overrun with hypocrites.
Safe spaces aren’t so free,
they’re not open to all who enter;
Copying a cadence shouting their beliefs,
rhetoric gets you in the ‘In’ crowd.
Somewhere art’s been left to flounder,
shy behind all their shallow noise.
No desire to speak,
that’s been tried before.
Can’t open up when the response
is so utterly phony.
Safe spaces aren’t so free,
they’re not open to all who enter;
You’re not backed up when you’re gone.
Don’t think you’re exempt from their rules.
Only truly welcome with a cave-ate,
be a catalyst for their agenda.
God forbid you hold your own opinion
perhaps it’s better to remain exposed.
Safe spaces aren’t so free,
they’re not open to all who enter.
The politics of religion,
its statues on fire
All martyred saints burning
in canonized pyre
As cardinals of vengeance
seek new hearts to be stoned
Inquisitors ramble,
the Creator on loan
The religion of politics,
papal decrees
Guilt laden promises,
salvationists fee
Crusaders on horseback,
twelve Apostles alone
Which is more dangerous,
the Word or the throne
(Chorus)
“Raise the curtain—praise the Lord,
darkness censures fast
Faith though blind, still hope to find,
beyond iconoclasts
“With eyes wide open, see the light,
all else to render lies
His love unending, given free,
eternal life the prize”
(The New Room: April, 2022)
To not appease the critics,
success within our grasp
The charlatans of written words,
venom of the asp
They bury deep inside their dens,
ordained iconoclasts
Passing judgment, casting blame
—on what they fear might last
(To T.R.’s ‘Man In The Arena’ March, 2021)
I've walked at a peculiar
angle
As I've laughed at peculiar
circumstances
I've aged in the most peculiar
of vacuums
And went on to love in the most
normal of ways
I've worked in a spirit
of defiance
As I've traveled the many miles
from compliance
I've lived within the confines
of the moment
And written of those things I
could never speak
I've seen the footsteps of
giants
Made by the intrepid feet of the
smallest of men
As the mirrors of my past have risen
in blind reflection
I've come face to face with
the only adversary I will ever fear
I've asked the age old questions
knowing there are no answers
I’ve taught the unschooled a language
they will teach again
I have vowed to seek recovery
for what the iconoclasts have broken
Until truth reclaims from power
—what was heaven sent
(Philadelphia Airport: August 1st, 2015)
Echo blasts,
as it's all hunky-dorey in an iconoclasts contrasts,
displacement of my courageousness on a dumb-fast
tele~cast,
the resumed movement 28 days later wasn't even just as fast;
it was what was all along in my
aged economical forestry please-
in a delved and dormant door-mat that I once seized-
it came and went like a breeze,
but over came me,
it even behaved like the beast.
But with all this loss of law please-
unveil for a prince his own memory,
travel for the farm every existence in sequential feast-
the con-mans academic lean,
a sordid snape's reconciliation.
See through peace as peace was once an innocent things thing,
but never bring,
never feel a sleeping wing,
just josh and joist with brothers keepers,
steal the stew we love deeper seasoned and evaporated reapers-
because lord did they appear,
and dormant was their meal,
my first,
my last,
and entry of my free feel.
I've walked at a peculiar
angle
As I've laughed at peculiar
circumstances
I've aged in the most peculiar
of vacuums
And went on to love in the most
normal of ways
I've worked in a spirit
of defiance
As I've traveled the many miles
from compliance
I've lived within the confines
of the moment
And written those things I
could never speak
I've seen the footsteps of
giants
Made by the intrepid feet of the
smallest of men
As the mirrors of my past have risen
in blind reflection
I've come face to face with
the only adversary I will ever fear
I've asked the age old questions
knowing there are no answers
I’ve taught the unschooled a language
they will teach again
I have vowed to seek recovery
for what the iconoclasts have broken
Until truth reclaims from power
—what was heaven sent
(Philadelphia Airport: August 1st, 2015)
Puppy!
She is one of a kind
A woman of reason and love
Purely ossified and ornate
Puppy! A mother of all people
Slender but not much,
She’s a figure of compassion
Ready to share with others in their plights
Happiness of others is her joyful rewards
Touching every heart to burn,
and to live a new life
Puppy! Changing even the iconoclasts
She feels and wipes away tears
She has the beautiful face that,
that encompasses wisdom and knowledge
Ridges may exist, but his love levels them,
Wonders may cease, but she cannot forget others
Puppy! a woman to be revered
She is an impetus for every help
An angelic apostale
A mother of unfathomed help
A helper for the burdened,
and a tower of hope for the less fortunate
A light for the depressed and,
A source of strength for the weak
Puppy! the stature of mercy
In me she is always present
She’s a reflection of joy
The sparkles of the light
The twinkling stars and,
A surgeon of the heart
Puppy! a magical touch of love
CHRISTMAS GIFTS
Churches – fill with cameo believers,
He sits outside shivering in the cold,
Returning to the fold - self deceivers
Immune to fate - no battered cup to hold.
Snow swirls in mystic funnels lacking faith
Tantalizing visions adrift in space
Manic angels praying with homeless wraith
Acknowledging the cold and simple grace
Sheltering in the hearts of troubled souls.
God’s creatures seeking welcome to their home
Iconoclasts long beached on credos shoals
Frozen hearted pretenders to love’s throne
Touched by the spirited tones of the bell
Swaddled in snowflakes where snow angels fell.
12/13/2015
submitted to – A Christmas Sonnet Acrostic – Poetry Contest
sponsor – Andrea Dietrich
I did not wish to sleep with old gods
that stand trying to evoke the grey skyline of modernity
That preach on hummingbird wires
that murmur telemetry through echoed iconoclasts.
And as the aging blue repetition spatters on a new cosmetic smile
that fades with its bedfellows in the eons of perfidy,
despondent windows (oh so many will be seen in the unseen) ,
and the lost scribes of what needs to be forgotten
(our oh so necessary important leeches) .
I remember that this always relieves me of something.
Something
Such a natural and dissatisfying word.
A word that reaches sadly for itself.
That this now has a home.
A breath, a birth.
This moment lives somewhere.
It did not ask me of anything.
Only to discard memory for, again, something beautiful.
Beautiful and forgotten.
The last leaf that clings to its creator.
There it is,
and swept along, the common wind
of everyday reality, leading
through the metaphysical and
to infinity. There, and just for us.
It is too soon ignored. Too soon,
conformity. Too soon
the halloos are but faint upon our ears.
The marchers will retire; iconoclasts
abandon the most distant cause.
The infinite is just too far away.
It matters not. The road begins
just out of town, and that is where
faith travels...down the path
of martyrdom and ecstasy,
of beauty and disgust.
It is Frost's road less traveled
and sheer faith is like that
as it must be,
forging ever far ahead,
irrespective of terrain both now
and ages in the sweep
of ages never dreamed, and there,
and open still.
There.
Just out of town.
And who will set upon it, now,
with me?
No surety. I'm out of promises.
It's just a road.
Now will you come?
~
Let me tell you about my dream
My father said, putting me on his lap
It was a dream that has always seemed
Too impossible and hard to grasp
I dreamt that I was alone on a cloud
Looking at our nature being felled
Observing the glacial mountains dwell
Not up high but down so low
Destroying our lands as foolhardy foes
I saw the florid flowers darken as dried blood
As they greeted the ground with bowed heads
Giving scent not to the skies but to mud
I saw pain leaking from fettered petals
That fitfully designed our earth as devils
Beside me, there sat many grey clouds
It was a scene so hard to fathom
Never once seen color that shrouds
The sky above, that was for purity an emblem
I was surprised but thankful it was just a dream
For in reality it’s illicit to fell
And impossible for grey clouds to dwell
In our atmosphere, an idiosyncrasy of purity
Humans will never accept such ignominy
And never become iconoclasts
For our nature is our identity.
I falteringly smiled with a tear in my eye
I didn’t expect my father to ask why
I just looked at his clouded eyes and said with tender
You’re right dad Thank God it was just a dream.
Each of us is a warrior:
For earthly survival,
For the Lord of our soul.
What determines the time of service
For each individual warrior?
Conscription? Consumption?
Was this culprit a volunteer?
An honorable discharge
Is really all the old warrior seeks.
In the end the medals and commendations
Don't matter
As iconoclasts, gathering dust at the last.
In the material form they represent
Symbols, of the warrior's human achievement,
Rusting, deteriorating, without a hint
Of what they originally meant.
Value not the icon,
But hold it close to your heart.
It represents the culmination of humanity,
And your memory of it, the most precious part.
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